Hi! I got my first two fancy mice females about 7 months ago, Oreo and Matilda. Unfortunately, Oreo died unexpectedly last night. About a month ago she got a small scratch on her chest and she scratched some fur off but it looked like it was healing well. I've read that female mice do better with friends, so I was wondering if I should get another mouse or two. I'm hoping Matilda still has a long time left to live and I don't want her to spend it lonely. I've also been too scared when trying to handle them that they'll run away so she doesn't get much contact from me either. I've read that older mice will have trouble adapting to and bonding with new mice, but is Matilda young enough that she could still bond with them? If I should get her a friend should I get a single mouse or another pair? What's the best way to introduce new mice? Thanks for the help!

Before someone more knowledgeable jumps in to give advice, I thought I share what I learned over the past months that I owned and introduced mice to each other and pick up about mice behavior. However, please take whatever i say with a grain of salt as I'm still learning about mouse care.

It's always best to provide a female with a companion, you said you've had yours for 7 months, so it would be safe enough to assume she is around 9 months old. That is still reasonably young as mice live around 2 to 2.5 years, so she has more than half of her life ahead of her. That being said, if you introduced just one new mouse to her, the same thing would happen where your original mouse would pass from old age and the other one would be left without a partner as she would be significantly younger. For that reason, it would be best to introduce your current mouse to at least two new mice.

I successfully introduced my two original mice to three new rescues (those new three are significantly older but I'm not sure of the exact age, presumably over a year old). What I did was quarantine the new mice for 3 weeks before introduction, during that time they were just being tamed while looking out for any potential illnesses that could be spread to my original two.

After three weeks, I lined a bathtub with a blanket and put a whole lot of tubes, flying saucers and wheels, sprinkled some sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds around. I also put some houses that have multiple entrances there too so no mouse could get trapped when attacked. I then let all of the mice out in there for 2 hours. Make sure you provide a water bowl or a water bottle with a stand. I made a stand from some crafting sticks and hot glue, but honestly, a water bowl would be just fine too!

Do not separate the mice even if you hear squeaking or see fighting. It's normal, they are just trying to work out who is going to be the dominant mouse. As long as there is no blood, the mice are okay and should stay together.

After the two hours are up, place the mice in a freshly cleaned enclosure. Make sure that any potential scent left by the mice who lived in the enclosure before is cleaned out... so all toys have to be washed and wooden toys baked. What I did was just put the toys I used in the bathtub into the cage while I worked on cleaning the other toys.

A good thing to do is to have a few hammocks around, that way if a mouse wants some peaceful or alone time, they can hide away up there.